Part of him was tempted to crawl into the bed alongside her, which he put down to his naturally possessive nature. Having a woman in his bed was something he’d always enjoyed for the obvious reason, but his need to hold her was a more primal compulsion. Protective, certainly, but an assertion of his right, too. Octavia was his and, despite Primo’s plotting, would remain so.
Her recent surgery gave him the strength to show some decency, though. She needed her rest and he wanted her to have it.
Somehow he had disturbed her, however, because he’d barely dozed off when she awoke, pulling away from his light fingers against the pulse in her wrist, giving him an inscrutable look he could barely read in the filtered city light that slid past the vertical blinds.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said, hearing the rasp of fatigue in his voice.
“What time is it? I should check on Lorenzo, see if he’s hungry.” She tried to push herself to sit.
“I was just in there.” He leaned forward to touch her shoulder, feeling her stiffen under the weight of his fingertips. It wasn’t the first time she’d reacted with something like rejection, which disturbed him. “He was sleeping,” he said, pretending he hadn’t noticed, offering a reassuring caress that she retreated from by dropping onto her back. “The nurse said she’d come for you when he wakes.”
“Oh.” She licked her lips. Her mouth looked shiny and pouty. Very delectable. He’d kissed her earlier, but it hadn’t been the right moment for the kind of reunion he craved. Right now wasn’t any better. His sharpest male instincts were activated, desperate not only to go on the attack in his role as protector, but wanting a private expression between them that affirmed his role as the chosen one to kiss and touch and cover her. He wanted the physical claiming that reinforced their bond.
Not possible, obviously. Not in her condition. He hoped that was the only reason she was tensing under his touch.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, genuinely wanting to know, but his voice thickened involuntarily as frustration bled back into him. Primo had risked her life and Lorenzo’s by failing to call the ambulance. How had he thought to get away with that along with the rest? He couldn’t think of any of it without nearly losing what temper he’d managed to keep.
“I’m fine,” she murmured, shifting to draw the light blanket over her arms and shoulders, all the way up to her chin.
A lie, of course. She couldn’t possibly be fine. He wondered why she wasn’t being honest with him. The estrangement he’d been sensing took on new dimensions as he grasped how much power Primo had had, moving into Alessandro’s mother’s mansion under a guise of waiting out renovations. It had seemed insignificant when Primo had asked Alessandro’s mother four months ago if he could prevail on her. Sandro hadn’t seen any harm in it so he hadn’t interfered, but now...
Now he saw it as the seemingly innocuous chess move it had been.
“You’re not fine, Octavia. We’ve both had a number of shocks and there’s more. Primo switched the babies’ name tags.”
* * *
Primo. Perhaps she’d guessed it subconsciously, but hadn’t wanted to face it because it was too cruel a thing for one person to do to another, especially to an innocent like Sorcha and a pair of newborn babies.
“I didn’t realize he hated me that much,” she said.
“It wasn’t you he hated,” Alessandro said, rising abruptly, shrugging within the collared shirt he’d changed into. He still hadn’t shaved, though. He turned to pace across the end of her bed, then stood at the window, angled to see out the slats of the blinds.
The disillusionment he projected affected her, making her heart pang even though she didn’t want to be soft-hearted Octavia anymore, the one who thought she could keep herself safe and ease tension between her parents by doing as she was told.
“Who then? You?” she croaked. “I’m the one who chose you over him. He never forgave me for it.” Why were there always such harsh consequences when she asserted herself?
Alessandro swung around. “He said that?”
She debated a moment. The cousins had always been so close it had been yet one more wall that had kept her from trespassing anywhere near Alessandro’s deeper self. He wouldn’t want to hear anything against his precious Primo.
“Not in so many words, but it was obvious. He thought it was my fault he was stuck in London and said he should have told my father where to go when he first approached him about joining the family fortunes. It was clear he was angry and I gave up trying to make amends. But I didn’t realize he was capable of something this awful.”